As part of their application to the Forum, applicants are initially invited to set out—in a document of no more than 2,000 words—what idea, ideas, set of arguments or topic they propose to develop for presentation at the Forum. This document should articulate in clear terms (i) the title and (ii) the content of the proposed presentation; it will form the main component of the application. In addition, each application should include a cover letter detailing why the applicant should be selected for the Forum (and, where appropriate, circumstances explaining why the applicant is outside the six-year academic position rule and/or in financial need of a contribution of US$1,000.00 to their anticipated costs), together with an updated curriculum vitae of their education record, employment history and research achievements. All applications must be made in accordance with the Schedule and must be made on or before December 1, 2013; regrettably, no applications beyond this date can or will be accepted.

Six to nine applicants will then be selected for the Forum and will be notified of their selection in January 2014. They will then be asked to work further on their submissions and prepare a draft of their work for presentation to the Forum. These will be of the order of no more than 12,000 words (inclusive of footnotes). The convenors of the Forum wish to emphasize the importance of this limitation; no presentations exceeding this limitation will be able to progress to presentation at the Forum.

The draft of the presentation to the Forum will be due from each of the selected applicants on or before May 1, 2014: compliance with this deadline is essential because, shortly after this date, presentations will be forwarded to those senior international law scholars participating in the Forum in order that they may prepare their respective responses. At this point, these final presentations will not be circulated to other participants in the Forum, but will be included in a dossier of all relevant paperwork that will be dispatched shortly before the hosting of the third Forum at the University of Melbourne in July 2014.